Al-fresco patio cidery lollies
nearly got the 'I-screams' - ate mine so fast,
soaking up the sunlight in the still air,
and the comic cloud-shapes
more boggle-eyed than painterly.
The 'Visitor Centre', open at the weekend,
think we are a kind of bird,
want to know how many,
how arrived. Uh?
Expect them
to look at us with telescopes
and tag our legs with beeps.
We did see an egret,
neck as heron, folded S,
petite-pterodactyl, veer pale,
iconic, from sea-gate
over drainage ditch,
regret rien of all
the bleak walk that brought us here.
And yet, when we leave, and top the rise,
all the colour has drained out of the world,
as if we'd stepped through a portal
towards the grey beach, the grey sea and sky,
beyond the dead pines.
"Let's find a round stone and kick it along," I ventured,
my father being fond of round stones,
and seeing 'a beauty' at my sister's too.
But all we could find was a hoppity one
roundish in parts.
Now, Joe proved great
at footing it along (and he can zip his own coat now);
so that was a project we four took a mile or two,
'back on the road again'*
overtaken by tumble-seaweed -
and the sun returned.
Quicksand down by the cobalt channel:
we push our walking sticks
in the gloop gloom under the tan sand;
and then head over a shallow sheen.
Cloud looms drifting in a trodden mirror
to land, to the dune-rim,
erratic tufty stumbling
and edge of marsh, late inundated,
sucking boot-heel.
Sitting dune-side,
a skyful of Ghibli clouds
abiding the furnace of this winter sun.
deepening red-gold in chill air to cherish
a day where roots of dream
twine in the live cloud-theatre,
Love and Hate find common void
in meditation (being not there);
sunset clouds line like a Dumbo dawn
pink elephants melted.
Above 'The Lifeboat' patio,
a scimitar of moon could cut
through any argument;
and someone has switched on the musak
to interrupt for us, for us
the blackbirds singing into late dusk,
unstinting into night,
and through it
their promises of spring -
yet, let Ol' Blues-Eyes sing.
..............................
*James Taylor 'Highway Song'
YOU ARE READING
Greenclad.
PoesiaIvy-jacketed, December oaks on road-borders shock their stark gestures at us now, through sun and sleet, that January will yawn at and February, propping eyelids, will desperately ignore, longing for blossom; and making do with the least of anything...
